The protection of garments and other such articles with transparent plastic bags is a widely employed technique. These bags are most conveniently supplied in roll form in a continuous series from which the individual bags can be successively detached for use. One particular method which has proved successful is that according to which a garment is suspended in vertical disposition and the foremost bag of a series is drawn down over the same and detached.
For reasons of economy as well as ease of storage and utilization, bags of the above noted type are generally fabricated of a pliable plastic such as polyethylene to provide that such bags adapt readily to the shapes of the articles to be covered. Also, for reasons of economy and minimizing of weight, these bags are generally fabricated with a minimum wall thickness.
The use of a very small wall thickness and a pliable plastic enables bags of the aforesaid type to be provided in the form of a flatted tube, possibly having one or more longitudinal seams along which the tube is closed. This tube is provided with transverse alignments or lines of perforations constituting tear lines defining separate and detachable bags. The tube is further provided with substantially transverse seams formed by heat sealing or like techniques whereby the individual bags are provided with closed or substantially closed ends.
According to U.S. Pat. No. 3,287,881 as well as U.S. Pat. No. 3,181,773 the walls of flatted tubes of the above noted type are in close proximity to each other. While this is desirable for purposes of storage, packing and guidance and for various other reasons, the proximity of the opposed walls has a distinct disadvantage which can be avoided by the use of special provisions in the bagging techniques as well as in the bagging equipment and in the bags themselves.
More particularly, according to this known art, one or more spreading elements may be passed through the closed ends of the bags into the mouths of the next successive bags which mouths are thereby opened. In further accordance with this prior art there is provided a series of plastic bags each of which has leading and trailing edges, the leading edge being openable and the trailing edge being substantially closed. Mechanical spreading elements are arranged in substantially fixed positions adjacent a bagging station and the foremost of the aforementioned bags is drawn over the spreading element or elements onto this article. The spreading element or elements serve to pass through the trailing edge of the foremost bag into the leading edge of the next sequential bag until the trailing edge bears against the article such that the spreading element opens the leading edge of the next sequential bag. The foremost bag is detached from the series and the thusly bagged article can be removed.
While there are many distinct advantages to the above noted technique, there are certain additional problems which are not dealt with, namely the need to apply certain manual forces to separate the leading bag in the series from the remaining bags which are still affixed to one another. Furthermore, the known apparatus does not deal with eliminating certain tedious manual jobs pertaining to lifting the bagged garments from the bagging station as well as arranging such garments at the bagging station.
Still further, there has appeared some loss of bags due to tearing which in turn is due to the need for manually separating the leading bag from the remaining bags in the series without any mechanical or other type of assistance.
Still further, the known arrangements do not deal with the problem of minimizing the time to open sequential bags as they are brought to the bagging station. These various problems have been dealt with by the apparatus and techniques disclosed in copending application Ser. No. 530,201.